I.

 Welcome, thou glorious dawn! Oh! who would cling
 To sleep, and sleep's bewildered fantasies;
 When he might see the rushing of thy wing,
 Spreading like clouds from some high sacrifice;
 And hear thy trumpet bid the world arise,
 While the wan morn-star, in her watch-tower gray,
 Extinguishes her little lamp and flies.
 But lo! the east is all one golden ray,
And on his burning wheels out rolls the king of day

II.

 Lovely—but lovelier still, when that bright morn
 Unfolds the vision of some first-seen land;
 And, as the twilight clouds are upwards borne,
 Foreign the hills, the vales, the streams expand;
 Charming the wanderer's foot suspense to stand,
 As, like a young creation, round him rise
 Its thousand shapes of soft, and bright, and grand;
 All strange, all spell-touch'd; ev'n the wild wind's sighs,
The peasant's call, to him, romantic melodies!

III.

 Yet who can feel it like the luckless wight,
 In France's lumbering wains through midnight pent,
 With heavy lids that will not slumber quite,
 Stiff limbs and beating brow, and spirit spent;
 When on the eastern hill's slow-gain'd ascent,
 The breeze first meets him from its bowers below,
 Streaming cool odours, living element;
 And his clear'd eye sees mount and forest glow;
And the whole landscape lights its whole enchanted show.

IV.

 'Tis dawn upon Mont Martre! O'er the plain,
 In flake and spire, the sunbeam plunges deep,
 Bringing out shape, and shade, and summer-stain;
 Like a retiring host the blue mists sweep.
 Looms on the farthest right Valerien's steep,
 Crown'd with its convent kindling in the day;
 And swiftly sparkling from their bowery sleep,
 Like matin stars, around the horizon play
Far village vanes, and domes and castle-turrets gray.

V.

 'Tis a rich scene; and yet the richest charm
 That e'er cloth'd earth in beauty, lives not here.
 Winds no green fence around the cultured farm;
 No blossom'd hawthorn shields the cottage dear.
 The land is bright, and yet to thine how drear,
 Unrivall'd England!—Well the thought may pine
 For those sweet fields where each, a little sphere,
 In shaded, sacred fruitfulness doth shine,
And the heart higher beats that says, “This spot is mine.”

VI.

 St. Cloud! How stately from the green hill's side
 Shoots up thy Parian pile! His transient hold,
 Who wore the iron crown of regicide!
 He treads its halls no more—his hour is told.
 The circle widens; Sevres bright and cold
 Peeps out in vestal beauty from her throne,
 Spared for Minerva's sake, when round her roll'd
 From yon high brow the Invader's fiery zone,
Resistless, as can tell thy faded tow'rs, Meudon!

VII.

 A trumpet!—at the sound Mont Martre's spread
 With martial crowds, a glittering, crimson tide,
 Pouring incessant from its sunbright head.
 Part, that in splendour deepen down its side,
 In square, and line, and column wheeling wide
 To many a solemn touch of harmony.
 Part to the far champaign that clanging ride,
 Like eagles darting from their aëry high,
Like the rich-flashing lights of autumn's evening sky.

VIII.

 The British hands! A power is in the sound,
 It speaks of freedom, valour, virtue nigh;
 It calls up England upon foreign ground!
 Far be from us the false philosophy
 That owns not country's nobly-partial tie!
 The thoughts that like a second nature come
 In distance and in death to fix the eye
 On the heart's classic soil;—by temple, tomb,
By all love's names endear'd,—by all in one, our Home.

IX.

 War has its mighty moments:—Heart of Man!
 Have all thy pulses vigour for a thrill
 Prouder than through those gallant bosoms ran
 When first their standards waved above that hill?
 When first they strove their downward gaze to fill
 With the full grandeur of their glorious prize—
 Paris! the name that from their cradle still
 Stung them in dreams; now, glittering in their eyes,
Now won—won by the Victory of Victories!

X.

 For this had bled their battle round the world;
 For this they round the world had come to war;
 Some with the shatter'd ensign that unfurl'd
 Its lion-emblems to the Orient star;
 And some, the blue Atlantic stemming far;
 And some, a matchless band, from swarthy Spain—
 With well-worn steel, and breasts of many a scar;
 And all their plains to their last conquering plain
Were sport, their trophies all to this proud trophy vain.